Welcome To Wonderland
by Creegan
Summary: Follow up to "A Waking Dream" from Creegan's Journal


Disclaimer: Listen here, I don't own the Cleopatra 2525 world. I'm not making any money off this material. Why am I doing this you may ask? More or less likely for my own personal kicks. So no infringement intended, I've just got these things in my head that I need to get out. Damn Voice!  
  
The Creegan Journals  
  
Entry 2  
  
"Welcome to Wonderland"  
  
He wasn't aware of how long he had sat there trembling on his knees while gazing off into the steely confining space, which surrounded him in his misery. A moth in a glass jar, trapped again and nowhere to go. Hypnotized by his own fears, a voice in his head had previously told him something which now echoed: "You are home!"  
  
"I am home?" his shaking voice repeated out loud to himself. "How can that be?" he internally questioned the rationality of the thought.  
  
Various beings, people, or whatever the hell they were, were coming and going, up and down this shaft that his eyes were fixed on. The travelers didn't seem to notice him as he had watched a good deal of them fall and then project themselves upwards. He sat there wondering: "What is further down there anyway? How is it that they travel this way?" If he could have inched his way to the other side from here to get a closer look his curiosity would have driven him to take a peek over the edge.  
  
"Has humanity evolved so that they can now fly? If that is possible, how much time has passed for that to occur?" he further wondered.  
  
"Perhaps I should follow one of them down to my death?" he chuckled lightly instead of crying, yet he felt the sting of tears well up in his eyes. "Follow them down the hole into hell?...Into hell where I belong!...I belong in the ground!" He now found himself weeping. As he wiped away the tears he scolded himself: "Just wait a damned moment! Why the fuck do I feel this way!"  
  
He was smart enough to realize that if he continued thinking this way he was going to have a nervous breakdown right here, right now. He repeated in his mind over and over: "Pull yourself together! Pull yourself together!" It didn't seem to help, nothing seemed to help as the crack between reality and fantasy began spreading further apart. He had to stop this madness; he had to get a grip on himself. He felt himself falling and then heard his own voice order: "Dammit Cole! Pull yourself together!"  
  
Drawn back into the past, blood covered his hands and stained his clothing as he tried to give someone CPR.  
  
"Who was that? Who am I giving CPR too? Whose blood is on my hands?" his present self wondered. In this memory he found himself now staring up into the face of his mechanical pet whose shadow stood hovering over him. His face dropped down to the face of a person unrecognizable to himself, the person he was trying to save. He remembered he was not alone. As he remembered it, he turned his head to view Jinx standing a few feet back behind him crying, he had never saw her like this before and it terrified him. He had just lost a spirit through his hands; the man he had been trying to save was dead. Jinx's voice became frantic as he remembered responding to the question she had on her mind by negatively shaking his head from side to side.  
  
"Oh God! Oh God! Rob!" she had cried out. He remembered his initial reaction afterwards was to back away from the body.  
  
"It was Rob Andrews blood covering my hands? Good Ol' Rob?" he presently questioned himself.  
  
"Fuck no, this can't happen! Rob has two small children! Mother-fucker!" he remembered saying to Jinx while she was bawling her eyes out. He paced back and forth frantically, panicking like a horse in a barn fire. While pacing he heard someone else's voice.  
  
"Oh, dear lord! What's happened?" came the very familiar voice of Donald Carter who had just accompanied George Bailey into the laboratory. Carter ran over to Rob and informed them all that he was gone, something Jinx and himself were already aware of.  
  
He remembered his uncle giving him a questioning glare. He couldn't say anything as the sounds of Jinx crying combined with knowing that Andrews was dead shattered his thoughts. He couldn't seem to stop his hands from shaking and he couldn't stop moving as he continuously paced the floor, enveloped with the chaotic riot going on under his skin.  
  
"Everyone calm down! Pull yourselves together!" his uncle commanded.  
  
Hands grabbed his shoulders, he couldn't move anymore and someone was standing in front of him. The hard slap of a hand across his face pulled his attention from his internal struggle, and he found himself staring slightly up into the eyes of his uncle.  
  
"For God's sake! I said calm down!" his uncle commanded yet again.  
  
"God's sake? God wasn't in any of this! Rob's dead!" he remembered replying only to receive a rough smack across the lips.  
  
"And I suppose you had nothing to do with it, either?" his uncle angrily questioned.  
  
He found he couldn't remember what had happened after that. There had to be answers to all these uncanny riddles. If only he could have remembered more. If he could remember more, then maybe he could understand why it was that he was here.  
  
Storming back down from a broken staircase that had lead him into what seemed to be a whole new world, mixed emotions consumed him and he couldn't help but feel utterly lost and alone. Complete and total shock was no longer adequate descriptions for his current state, as a ravenous heat filled his blood and shameful regret jabbed into his gut at the same time. A lingering intuitive feeling after taking a short glimpse into a past long gone convinced him that he was here out of some obligation he himself was liable for. He now convinced himself that he was here of his own fault, for something he had done!  
  
How he detested himself at that moment, he hated that he didn't know why he was here, he hated that he was so damned helpless, and he hated most of all that he was scared. Could it be true that his instincts were correct? Was he indeed here out of his own fault? How could it be? Did it have something to do with what he remembered? Did it have something to do with Rob Andrews? How could any of this be? If only he could recall in full detail exactly how he had come to be here. Where was here anyway? Had he done something so horrible that he had deserved to wake up frightened and alone in a world that was nothing like the one he had been familiar with? Did he deserve to fall into the eye of the hurricane, to forever be out of place and lost?  
  
He just couldn't comprehend any logical reason for why he should be here, a reason that he could convince himself to fully believe. From what he had already pieced together about the life he had had, he knew that there had to be a reason. The kind of person he remembered himself being would not have just volunteered to be cryo-froze on some whim. No, he knew himself well enough to know that he wouldn't have just volunteered for something if there was not some perfectly damned good reason behind it all. He just couldn't remember what had possessed his reasoning, which frustrated him. Why didn't any of this make sense to him? Even without his memories shouldn't he know something regarding his own nature and what kind of person he was? What was the driving force that motivated him to do anything? Shouldn't he know that at least? He was still the same person wasn't he?  
  
Instead of a string of time-lined memories, his memories played themselves out in multiple spontaneous flashes with no beginning time and no ending time. He simply couldn't decipher what had come first from what had come later, if in the memory there was no clear give away to the time or his age. Memories were playing out in his mind like parts of a movie that had not yet been put together. Half of his memories seemed to lie on the cutting room floor, and he wondered if anything important lay cut from his mind that he desperately had to know in order to survive in the here and now.  
  
There was only one way at the moment to find out anything at all useful in regards to his past. His eyes followed the ever-moving stairs under his feet. It seemed he had just climbed these god-forsaken stairs! However, he was well aware that whatever he was searching for could lie back down this path of stairs passing under feet, at the end of the ancient tomb that he had known as a laboratory. It was the only option he had available and it was back down the way he had just come. Back down these stairs and back through memory lane. Back to the very place he had struggled to come from. The only way to find anything he sought after was to search the catacombs of the forgotten place in which he had previously rested in semi-death for time unknown. He had hope that he could uncover any existing truths that might lie buried there.  
  
Almost before he had become aware of it, his feet had carried him to the bottom of the stairs. Out of breath, he reached the doors to his tomb. Something made him stop before entering back through those doors.  
  
"To think I lay dead to the world, dreaming in nothingness to awaken into a living nightmare! I wonder if death would be kinder... Does Cruelty indeed beget Kindness?" he pondered. "Could it be that this world be any crueler?" he asked the emptiness. After his experience of waking up alone in desolation and physical discomfort he wondered if better existed or if it only got worse from here out?  
  
A cold chill ran down his spine as he thought that maybe it would have been better if he hadn't woken up at all. Returning to the place he had just earlier wished he were leaving he thought: "Well... I suppose if there is nothing to be revealed down here... The real reason that I have returned must be so that I can die here." He hugged himself from the biting coldness and wished that if he were to die here it wouldn't be because he would freeze to death. He pleaded in his heart with anyone who may have been listening to allow him to find something or someplace warm. Though if that wish were granted he would probably end up freezing to death in his own cold, freezer burned skin, to only wake up in some infernal hell. As he peeked back inside the dead laboratory he thought: "Maybe this is it - Hell! My hell!!!"  
  
While watching where he stepped, he maneuvered his way back through the rummage. Inside the laboratory he now began his search for anything that could help him remember anything else. Sifting through the file drawer he found nothing on file, it was as if someone had purposely cleared out everything of importance in the whole laboratory with exception of him buried in a cryotube. He decided that his only option for discovering anything at all was to search the computer, although he wondered if it too hadn't been cleared out. "Knowing my luck, I'll not find a damn thing!" he thought.  
  
There was only one problem with checking the computer. And that problem happened to be the on again/off again power. He decided he would make an attempt to fix that problem and began hunting for the source of a power supply or a reliable alternative as the lights continued to flicker on and off. At least there was some power opposed to no power, because he realized he could have possibly died staying trapped in the cryo-tube. Of course at this moment that didn't seem like such a terrible thing.  
  
There had to be a circuit breaker somewhere in here since it was obvious that this lab must have been wired separately from the rest of the building, which was either gone or being used for something else. This gave him an idea. He wondered if it could be possible to crawl through the vents and find somewhere where he could get something to wear or eat? Of course a whole new problem presented itself with this idea, he didn't have any money. If he did have money somewhere he couldn't remember where it was, and he definitely didn't know whether or not he could use standard US dollar currency here. "Probably not!" he thought. It seemed highly unlikely that his money would have been any good down a rabbit-hole anyway. He realized he needed to get above ground, he didn't know what everything up there was like now. But surely that is where he needed to be.  
  
"Where did they hide it? Blast it - it has got to be here somewhere!" he wondered, after searching the entire laboratory twice over for an electrical circuit box, a generator, or anything that could help, and coming up empty handed. Becoming abnormally still with a blank expression on his face, he delved deep into his own mind. Being overcome with a sudden burst of adrenaline combined with fury he put his hands behind his head, paced back and forth trying to rationalize to himself what he should try next.  
  
He flung his hands from his head, decided he just couldn't take it anymore and went on a rampage of destruction, destroying anything and everything in his path that hadn't already been destroyed, with the exception of the computer. He picked up the metal bar that he had used to spread the lab doors apart with upon waking up here earlier, and began slamming it with all his strength against the cryo-tube. He continually beat it and beat it without much effect, except for wearing himself out to the point where he collapsed to the floor. Lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling he attempted to catch his breath once more.  
  
Watching the lights dance for awhile, he felt so weakened, his skin was begging to be scratched and he supposed that he needed to take a shower to wash the dried cryofluid from his skin. He imagined the intense frigidness chilling his blood, combined with the annoying skin irritation were both results from the improper exposure to dried cryofluid. He was having an allergic reaction that would only worsen if he didn't get it off his skin. And it was a hopeless situation since he didn't have any clean clothes to put on afterwards or even anything to dry on. Then he wondered if the shower room still even existed at all and laughed manically.  
  
Falling into an abyss of depression, he just simply didn't care anymore. Was there any use in getting up from here? What was the use?  
  
When the lights precipitately stopped flashing he wondered: "Could it be?" He sat up forward and bent his back and face around so that he was facing in the direction of the computer. "But for how long?" he wondered.  
  
Jumping up, he made a run for it, and attempted to miss stepping on the various objects on the surface of the floor. Reaching the computer he booted it to be immediately greeted by a black screen with the dark purple Zagar logo slapped across the top of the screen prompting him for his username and password.  
  
"Oh fuck! What's my username and password?"  
  
He tried guessing at first by typing in various words that came to his mind. In return he kept getting access denied over and over again. He leaned forward in the chair, tapping his head against the keyboard.  
  
"Can't I get a break?"  
  
A memory flooded through his head and in it he was sitting before the same computer, only he was working on something and low music played over the computer's speakers.  
  
"Hey Hun! Don'tcha think it's time for a break?" Jinx asked walking through the doors carrying something in her arms.  
  
"You know everyone else is gone! It's just you and me!" she said excitedly as she walked up behind his chair.  
  
"You know what that means don'tcha?" her arm extended, her hand dropped a cup of Jell-O pudding down in front of his face.  
  
"Not right now! I'm on a deadline. If I don't get this done soon, I will not be able to propose this to the others on time!" he responded with his eyes glued to the screen while waving the pudding away.  
  
He glanced away from the screen at her for a moment.  
  
"Besides, if they walk in and catch us...you understand that it will cost us our jobs! Remember? That whole no relationship policy?"  
  
"No, ya see, everyone thinks that I hate you - so they aren't going to expect a thang! Not one earthly thang! And, excuse me? What relationship? It's only sex!" she teased before walking a few feet away and unloading all the food she had in her arms out on a table.  
  
"Like I said, I have to get this done!" he continued typing away.  
  
"Awww... There's always tomorrow, know?" Jinx pouted. "Your looking so tired... so hungry... You're too young to be so uptight and stressed all the time! C'mon let's eat and then relieve some stress!" she replied as she walked up behind him and started massaging his shoulders.  
  
He ran a hand up over one of her hands on his shoulder and patted it: "Really! I'll be fine! I'm fine."  
  
"I'm just really onto something here!" he continued saying as Jinx looked over his shoulder at the computer screen.  
  
She rolled her eyes and pouted. "Didn't you hear a word of what I just suggested? You know: me - you - sex?"  
  
Jinx's eyes enlarged. "Whoa, baby! I'll say!" she exclaimed. "Onto something? More like on something! You do know that you're suggesting that a robot can run off of it's very own organic brain?" she laughed.  
  
"Robots don't have organic brains! Honey, they are going to chew you up and spit you out if you present that!" Jinx finished saying, wrapping her arms around his neck and slightly bending over the chair to get a even better look.  
  
"They might just do that!" he sighed. "They probably will in fact!" A short laugh escaped from his lips.  
  
"But you see it is not as far-fetched as you may think. It's already been proven that by implanting electrodes into a living primate's brain that the primate can make a mechanical limb move by simply thinking the action." He looked at her waiting to know what she had to say about that.  
  
"Yeah, I know! I've read about that research! But you're not talking about running a machine off of some living animal's brain! You're suggesting a machine running off of a "organic brain" that is lacking in the head and body department here!" she laughed.  
  
"You're talking about giving the scarecrow a brain!" she replied as she ran her hands through his hair making a mess out of it. "And the wizard couldn't even do that, baby!" She lowered her head beside of his and kissed his cheek.  
  
"You're not in Oz, Dorothy! And the Scarecrow here already has a brain - thanks!" He slightly turned his head staring her in the eyes, clearly amused with playfulness showing in his own eyes.  
  
"I just propose that a machine could run off of any organic brain under the right conditions." He paused. "Maybe even one of my machines," he mumbled under his breath. "Maybe even Ace."  
  
"Wait a minute, baby! Hold the phones! You're really serious about this, aren'tcha?" Jinx stared back.  
  
He nodded. "One of the problems I can't seem to find a way around at this point, consists of the compatibility between the mechanical wiring of the machine in question - which would otherwise be the central nervous system and the brain in question." He paused.  
  
" I'm just stuck!" He nuzzled his face against hers.  
  
"Yeah... but why would you want to invent a machine with a real brain?! And where are you going to get the brains, huh? People aren't just going to hand their brains over to you so that you can stick it in some robot! Anyway, I would think that wouldn't be the brightest machine anyway! Just look how dumb some people are! I say just throw silicon in there where you're wanting to put this brain and program it to do what you want it to do!" she replied being quite serious now.  
  
He laughed. "Oh, I've sparked your curiosity now. Haven't I? Okay: try thinking outside the box! The smartest human being only uses about 8% of what the human brain is capable of! We are flawed because we have animal impulses, but I am thinking that a machine already programmed, already endowed with a inner cpu, could find a way to fully access and make use of a brain equivalent to our own!" He lifted up one of her hands and started caressing it in his.  
  
"The way I'm thinking? You wouldn't even have to have a brain from a human being. If we can grow a human ear off of a mouse's back, then I am thinking in time it is going to be possible that there is going to be another way to grow, or clone if you would rather call it that, a fully functional brain. What would be more impressive is if this machine I'm thinking about could grow its own brain. If it grew its own brain to begin with it would be fully compatible and who knows, it might even become capable of reproducing itself and maybe even evolving - given enough time." He lifted Jinx's hand to his lips and kissed it.  
  
"It would be the perfect thing to include in, say that environmental control unit prototype that we are all working on? You know if we could all figure out how to do it!" He kissed her hand again. The fragrance on her skin invigorated his senses.  
  
"You've - ahem - Cole have you told the Doc about this?" She slipped her hand out of his grasp and rolled his chair around so that she could fully face him.  
  
"First Ace, and now the ECU? The thought of living machines is just creepy! Haven't you ever seen... Oh, what's that movie called!" Jinx seemed to be searching her mind.  
  
"I know what you're thinking! I'm not crazy, Jinx! And if anyone should agree with me on this, it should be George Bailey!" Cole seemed to almost be sulking.  
  
He decided he should try to change the subject and fast: "Is 'Maximum Overdrive' the movie your thinking about?"  
  
"Why do you say that?" she responded.  
  
He thought: "Damn! Too late! I knew she was going to take his side! I shouldn't have even mentioned it!"  
  
"Your unc's always seemed to me to be really in check with reality!" Jinx continued as she sat down on his lap in the chair, placing her hands gently on his shoulders.  
  
"You just don't really know my uncle like you think you do... He is not just some nice old man who is over the department and working on environmentally apt solutions to environmental problems. He has performed some very unethical procedures!" He turned his head away, looking away from her searching eyes.  
  
Jinx grabbed his face and jerked it around so that he was facing her. "Like what? I don't believe you Cole! He is like your father and anytime he is brought up in any conversation you act like a jealous brat! Why? What's the matter?"  
  
"Well, like vivisection! And I am not jealous!" he muttered.  
  
"Nothing is wrong! Everything is just fine!" He seemed to be pouting.  
  
"Oh brother! Not this again!" she sighed.  
  
"Baby, I know you don't like experiments on animals but when you're involved in certain scientific fields you have to perform such experiments! That doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person! Haven't ya learnt that yet?" She said as she lent in and tried to kiss him.  
  
He pushed her back a little bit. "Let me get this straight?... you think my ideals are over the top and I'm losing my mind because I am experimenting with automatons? I've always wanted to do something of vast importance that could improve lives and you think I'm crazy! But he can butcher a multitude of pound puppies and various other animals in heinous disgusting ways, which accomplishes nothing, in experiments that I would call anything but typical, and he isn't a bad guy? Did I mention that he is funding these experiments himself? And that some of his experiments have resulted in the most ungodly freakish mutations I've ever heard of?"  
  
"Hey! I didn't mean it like that! I'm not putting you down! I know your not crazy!" she retorted and stared at him a moment in silence before throwing her arms around him in a hug "I'm sorry, sweetie, I just didn't mean for you to take that as an insult. I don't care about your uncle, I just thought he was a descent guy!"  
  
"He's not!" he snapped.  
  
Cole sighed. "It's alright! And I'm sorry... It is just that... What if I told you that I've seen one particular result from one of my uncle's experiments that caught me off guard? A dog possessing a fully functional mechanical limb that it could control. The limb was fully integrated to fit into the dog's nervous system. A real progression from the monkey controlling the robotic joystick arm rigged up to a computer, wouldn't you say?"  
  
She sat back and stared at him. "I would say that it's not possible! Not that it isn't heading in that direction... If the doc could do that, then why hasn't he shared the information? A line of robotic prosthetic limbs would really help those missing in the body part area out! And make us all very rich!"  
  
She paused, glancing down at his lap. "Speaking of body parts! Why don't you kiss me before you talk me to death?" she bit down on her own lips waiting in anticipation.  
  
Cole acted like he didn't pay her suggestion any attention besides smiling, which must have irritated her.  
  
"No, I tell you, it is possible! And I don't know why he hasn't come out with it; but I am guessing it is because he considers the experiments to have failed! That, and maybe the experiments weren't authorized?"  
  
He stretched his legs out and grabbed Jinx around the waist pulling her closer.  
  
"Oh! And I prefer you to kiss me first!" he jested.  
  
"Mmmm hmmm! I'm sure you're just so shy!" She scrunched up her nose.  
  
"Failed, huh?" Jinx said, pressing her bosom up against his chest. "Getting comfortable?"  
  
"Comfortable?" He turned his head slightly to the side looking at her "It's suspect it is getting to that point!"  
  
"Failed... Yes... To my knowledge the animal didn't live very long after the experiment, and my guess was that it had suffered a great deal of excruciating pain!"  
  
His hands found their way around and under the back of Jinx's shirt.  
  
"So I guess that qualifies as a failed experiment - think? So I am afraid that there will not be any mechanical prosthetic limbs for a little while longer!" he sighed, "Unfortunately."  
  
He unhooked her bra and helped her pull her sweater up over her head.  
  
"Yeah, well... At least you don't need anything hard and plastic... I think you're all set." Jinx pushed his throat back and started sucking lightly on his neck.  
  
"But, the point I am trying to make about his experiment is: it worked! It doesn't matter if it only worked for a few hours. Working at all is proof enough for me that the reverse is in fact a possibility! It might not be accessible right now, but that is not to say that is it not possible!"  
  
He ran his hands up over each of her shoulders, slipping each frail little bra strap down off them.  
  
"Okay, baby!" She stopped sucking on his neck.  
  
"Say that I am with everything that you're saying!" She positioned her body firm against his, applying a good deal of pressure against his hips.  
  
"Say someone was able to bring what you propose to life..." She took his face in her hands. "What would be next?" She swiftly kissed his lips, pulled back suddenly and asked: "What would come after a living robot?"  
  
"I don't know! Perhaps obtaining immortality by living out eternity in the body of a machine?" He laughed softly as he finally managed to win the battle with the bra, dropping it to the floor.  
  
"Tsk Tsk More Science Fiction!" She rubbed her thumb across his lips. "You have got to stop watching so much Star Wars!" she said as she ground herself against the crotch of his pants.  
  
"Well, I must admit - I don't suppose a machine's sex life would be very fulfilling!" he chuckled as he cupped his hands over her breasts, feeling her nipples harden under his touch.  
  
"Oh! You did it now! I gotta make you shut up!" She tugged at his pants. "One way or another!" she said before she ran her tongue deep into his mouth.  
  
He almost tasted her as he slipped back into the present and sat there a moment thinking about her and wondering if their relationship did indeed only consist of sex? If memory did not deceive him she had been so beautiful. He really didn't need to be thinking about this at the moment but at least he was aware that the blood was flowing accordingly.  
  
No, there were other significant matters to attend to and he couldn't just dick around here thinking about a dark haired woman who was obviously lost in the past somewhere. If she was important enough he assumed he would have more memories about her, but for now he needed to find out what might be on this computer. Afterwards his priorities lay with getting somewhere safe and warm. Another thing that had been eating away at him was the realization that he really needed to wash this shit off of his skin and he needed to find something to eat and drink and soon.  
  
"I can just pine for lost loves later" he thought, although he deceived himself because at the same time he desperately wished she was here.  
  
"Star Wars?" He decided that his password must have something to do with Star Wars but there was still the ever-present username. He sat there and thought, "Could it be... Scarecrow?" Deciding to give it a shot, he started trying multiple words associated with Star Wars as passwords.  
  
The computer spoke out to him, "Access Granted!" which about scared him to the point of falling out of his seat. He had forgotten it could do that and chuckled at himself for being scarred by an artificial voice.  
  
Sitting there for a moment he wondered what to do now. "Huh! It worked!" He was actually surprised that he had got in. "You have three messages!" the computer voice informed him.  
  
He clicked the mouse pointer on the little mailbox pulling up his Zagar's email account. Opening the first note, he read it out loud: "Cole Regan Bailey we would like to thank you for your donation to help save the panda from extinction... blah, blah, blah!" He closed that one out without finishing and opened the next one, which was from Jinx. Her message seemed to be empty for some peculiar reason with the exception of the subject heading which read "Watch for Betrayers!"  
  
"Betrayers? Hmmm... Well, that is quite weird!" He quickly closed that one and clicked on the last message, which just happened to be from his uncle George Bailey. He read the message out loud: "Open up the video file located on the hard-drive entitled 'UDRGRD Project'."  
  
"Here we go!" he sighed as he auto searched the hard-drive for the file and opened it.  
  
Suddenly pre-recorded footage of his uncle standing there in this very laboratory in his perfect white lab coat started to play: "My dear boy! I suppose your wondering where you are, or more precisely when you are, and what has happened that you have woken up in I would imagine a world very much like Wonderland of all places! I am dreadfully sorry about the amnesia! It is an unfortunate side effect, but I assure you that there are some things that you don't want to remember. I have left you with a reminder of exactly what that has to do with by the way. However we'll get to that momentarily."  
  
The recording played on: "I have little worry about you if you have made it this far. However, I am sorry to inform you that I had to erase all your work files and records! From this point on, I am simply afraid that you do not exist!"  
  
"And yet here I am!" he thought while listening to the recording.  
  
The voice of his uncle continued: "I know, I know, your life's work up to this point destroyed! How sad! Well, I am afraid that it had to happen for the sake of us both! You will discover the reasons for this shortly."  
  
"Most likely dead and he has still somehow found a way to both make fun of me and complicate my life!" Cole thought.  
  
"I don't know if you are waking up on schedule or not, but I took the courtesy of resetting the cryo-timer and activating the security doors after we evacuated the research facility. You're scheduled to wake up December 24, 2509. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"  
  
"Yeah. Sure! Thanks for playing with my life!" Cole sarcastically spoke out loud. "It's a good thing I always kept a back up copy of whatever I had worked on at home - unless he has managed to get to that as well?" he thought.  
  
His uncle's voice continued: "Don't worry about your assets because I have arranged that you have something to start a new life in your new world with. I would explain this further but it would take longer than I care to explain. I will give you a moment to locate an ink pen - you will need to write the gentleman's name I am about to give you down, because you will not be able to replay this message, and you will not be able to rely on memory in your fragile condition."  
  
"Fragile condition?" Cole pondered.  
  
"Don't worry about finding any paper because I highly doubt that there is any, unless someone has discovered another way of making it!" his uncle continued.  
  
Cole wondered: "What could he mean by that?" He didn't know what to make of any of this, but decided to continue trying to follow what his uncle was saying, because he was sure that if his uncle informed him that he couldn't play the video footage back that his uncle had made sure that he couldn't replay the message. Cole's eyes frantically searched the laboratory over for an ink pen where he spotted one on the floor. He picked it up, scribbling it across his hand to make sure it would write.  
  
"I hope you have a pen in hand." the recorded voice of his uncle projected. "You have to find a man by the name of Clarence Messenger"  
  
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Cole stood there in disbelief of what his uncle had just said.  
  
He sighed and grunted in utter disgust "Oh, and I am just supposed to be able to go out and find George Bailey's Clarence! This is mad! Even if this guy does exist I don't know just how I am going to do that! It is not like I know this place like the back of my hand!"  
  
He realized he was talking to himself, and that uncle George wasn't there. "Or is he?" His eyes searched the room for anything that could have been a camera. Paranoid? Maybe. But he realized that if he had woken up in the future, who was to say that his uncle had not found a way to do the same?  
  
"This is not a joke, Cole!" his uncle's voice said, making him even more paranoid.  
  
His uncle continued: "You must find Clarence! You are probably aware that this is not a real name, but certain sacrifices had to be made and if you have indeed awakened on schedule then Clarence has had time to prepare the way for you. Find him and give him my name. Tell him that you are George Bailey's heir and he will understand the situation. But you must listen to me!"  
  
George paused long enough for the camera to zoom in close to his face "Under no other condition ever use the name Bailey! Clarence will be your guide and help you get your life on track. I am so sorry that it didn't work out the way it was supposed to!"  
  
"I leave you with your reminder, and bid you adieu!"  
  
Suddenly the video footage of his uncle cam to an abrupt stop and something entirely different started playing. This second video incorporated several different clips of news footage in which the news anchors talked about "the dying planet".  
  
Reports that animals that he had been aware of being on the endangered list for years, dying out of existence. Reports of vast numbers of other animal species that never should have been endangered, becoming endangered. Due to the effect of global warming, sea levels were raising dramatically fast. The Earth had been plagued with some of the worst natural disasters he had ever heard of in only a ten year period.  
  
And it only got worse. According to several other pieces of clipped footage there were reports that the earth's rain forests had been severely depleted of resources, and that the trees were dying at an accelerated pace from the progressed effects of acid rain. It just so happened that a mysterious unknown disease seemed to spring up out of nowhere. It was supposedly brought on by what scientists concluded to be from unclean living conditions and decreasing amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere, and it had killed over one third of the earth's human population in the course of twenty years.  
  
"What the hell happened, and if I lived through all this, why can't I remember? I don't think that is something someone would ever forget!" he thought as he kept watching and listening to the clips.  
  
One news anchor even reported that several islands had just up and disappeared in the middle of the night, sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor. Cole sighed. "Well... maybe after that happened everyone finally took that sinking of Atlantis theory seriously!"  
  
"What am I saying?" He couldn't believe he was hearing any of this and he couldn't believe that he was hearing himself make a joke of any of it. If all of this had really happened! Well, this was horrific and this wasn't anything to joke about!  
  
He watched as news anchor Tara Franks reported: "Tired of the ever hazardous pollution that threatens our daily lives? The worst tragedies in our history have befallen us within the last few years, but there is finally hope! We having been hearing talk in regards to a scientific break through in environmental control. Well the talk is finally over and our government has finally signed the contract with Zagar, which will allow Zagar to manufacture mass quantities of these environmental control units. Yes that is right! Today marks the first day of the incorporation of George Bailey's environmental control units into our lives! Environ and the EPA has worked closely with the CEO of the Zagar Corporation for the last three decades to make this remarkable day possible!"  
  
"Three decades," he repeated. "Three decades after I was placed in cryo- suspension?" he wondered as he continued to watch the clippings that hailed the coming of what the media were calling "The Bailies."  
  
Then he saw footage of one of these environmental control units.  
  
"That's not what he was working on! That is one of the same machines I was working on! One of the same ones they backed out of their support from! It looks as if it has been modified but it is it nonetheless! Son of a bitch stole my design!"  
  
He stood up from his seat clearly aggravated. He jerked the keyboard out and threw it across the room and placed his hands on the desk applying the force of his weight as he continued watching the clippings.  
  
From what he could deduct from the compiled news footage within only a decade later, "The Bailies" had miraculously somehow reversed a good deal of the damage done to the Earth's atmosphere.  
  
"But how?" he wondered.  
  
Then a memory flashed across his mind. He remembered after working several nights with hardly any sleep that Jinx had decided to make him a bedroom out of one of the empty rooms intended for storage of unused laboratory equipment. The second night in that room, which had been on the same floor as the laboratory, he had been struck with an epiphany of sorts. It was more like a mad dream concerning a special mutation of sorts.  
  
To grow a massive organic tissue that had the capacity of the human brain, using a form of cloning and a plant base was a very interesting idea. Plants converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, ran off of solar energy, could reproduce, and could regenerate. These were all features he had wanted to incorporate into the environmental control unit. At last he had thought he had come up with a theory that could be the solution to both his pet problem that he had been working on, and the environmental control unit problems that the whole team had been working on. To think that at the same time the solution had been right there under his nose in the image of the soybean plant at his desk. He guessed he had looked over it because he had been too exhausted to notice it, but he realized that something that had plant like properties could be remarkable in combating pollution and could also be quite maintenance free, which was a extra plus.  
  
Anyone else having the same mad dream would have probably disregarded it as folly, but not him. He felt like it was a message from God and that he could find a way in which he could bring his dream to life, only he didn't know how to begin. He needed to consult a very open minded botanist.  
  
He remembered recording all of his findings and his theories on the matter one night, when the golem that he had brought with him into the laboratory alerted him that someone was approaching. He quickly saved his findings and switched over to another screen. Pretending to play solitaire because no one could find out about this yet, not until he had some solid evidence that could back all these theories up. He realized that with proof, that this wasn't just something dreamed up; he could petition for funding and perhaps take this somewhere.  
  
His uncle walked into the laboratory and the golem halted him. "Stop where you stand!" it said in Cole's voice.  
  
"Seems he doesn't like you too much unc!" Cole scooted his chair around. His folded his arms and wore a big smirk across his face.  
  
"Stand down, soldier!" he commanded the golem.  
  
"You've given it your voice?" his uncle noticed.  
  
"Ahh - you know what they say about imitation and flattery!" Cole pointed out.  
  
"What is that doing in here to begin with? I'm well aware it is your design, so don't start with me about that! But as I recall that project was abandoned. They did pull your funding Cole! You were supposed to pull out!" His uncle seemed to taunt.  
  
"Yeah... I'm well aware of that, George! I'm sorry that I don't often do what I'm told. However, I really love the work I did on Ace here! And it is a real shame to spend the time and effort I did working on him to just have my project canned.  
  
"I mean, to end up scrapping a multi-million dollar worth weapon that the government petitioned us to work on to begin with, mind you! Because what? Because they decided they would rather kill off real soldiers in wartime instead of using my toy soldiers... Well, it is unbearable to even think about!"  
  
His uncle sighed. "I know it meant something to you, but you can't keep a weapon like that around the laboratory and you definitely can't take it home! It doesn't belong to you anymore. It belongs to the company, and if the company wants it dismantled, you're going to have to dismantle it!"  
  
"Oh, come off of it, uncle! You know you pretty much own this company...Tell them I'll alter the programming! Maybe we can turn out nice, highly advanced, robotic maids or something! That is just too much of tax payer money and too much of my sweat gone into its creation to just simply toss it out as scrap metal!"  
  
Suddenly his attention snapped back to the present. His eyes focused on video footage as he heard panicked voices over it. He couldn't believe his eyes as he watched the catastrophes that were raging on as "The Bailies" that he himself had designed, were attacking multiple cities. In a series of separate news video clippings from all over the world, several more assaults on humanity played out before his eyes. He wasn't there, but he felt as if he were there to see it as he suddenly felt deathly ill with guilt.  
  
He reached back behind himself clutching hold of the chair's arm and steadied himself as he eased his way back on the chair. He felt so sick to his stomach that he could have hurled if there had been anything in there to hurl. As he sat there taking all of this in he tried to piece together just what went wrong and just what was missing from this puzzle besides the obvious conclusion. The obvious conclusion being that he had had a hand in both saving and destroying the world as he had known it. Only he didn't really know how much of a hand he had had, he had no idea if George Bailey had stolen anything other then the prime layout of his design.  
  
The video footage ceased playing, freezing on the image of one of the machines that he shared his name with. He sat there entranced by the image of the Bailey for several minutes, his heart felt like it was up in his throat and he knew that everything that was wrong, was wrong with the whole world because of something he had or hadn't done. He wondered if there were any more footage, any more that George Bailey had intended for him to know, but that perhaps he had jinxed himself and now, if there was anymore he had been intended to know, he wouldn't know it.  
  
What his uncle had said earlier on the video repeated in his mind: "Under no other condition ever use the name Bailey!"  
  
"No worries about that!" he said to himself.  
  
He felt as if he was destined to die right here. After all, he was home, wasn't he?  
  
"I won't ever tell anyone... That's a promise!"  
  
-------Creegan 


End file.
